1.38pm By about 1.30pm in Berlin, a torrential flurry of rain, hail and snow came pouring down with gusts of whistling wind in central city neighbourhoods, The Local's Emma Anderson reports. Thunder and lightning also rumbled through the capital.

12.07pm A regional train has crashed into a tree, blown onto the track by the storm, in northern Bavaria.

The accident took place near Schwarzenbach an der Saale early on Wednesday morning. According to the Deutsche Bahn, no one was injured, but the line was shut down for hours.

11.49am Some people are tweeting pictures of sunny weather, asking "where is Axel?" Are the Lügenpresse [lying press] up to their dirty old tricks again?"

10.30am In the highlands of central Germany and in the Bavarian forest, the storm brought heavy snowfall. The snow was also drifting in winds of up to 75 km/h, according to the German Weather Service (DWD).

On the Brocken, the highest mountain in central Germany, hurricane force winds were recorded.

In Hamburg meanwhile, a high tide two metres above the usual level led to flooding in the harbour.

The port city's historic fish market, which lies directly on the harbour, was filled with knee-deep water, while cars and busses driving along the water front flooded through the high tides, according to the Hamburger Morgenpost.

The fish market from outside. Photo: DPA

Axel will continues to blow throughout Wednesday with the possibility of the most severe flooding in over a decade on the Baltic Sea coast.

By Wednesday morning though, public transport and road infrastructure remained largely unaffected by the bad weather.

Nonetheless a large truck from the Czech Republic crashed on a state road east of Dresden in heavy snow, bringing traffic to a standstill for three hours, Bild reports.